


The Echo In The Light

by sullymygoodname



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Magic, Perceived Reality, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Slash, Sad Memories, disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 02:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3272969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullymygoodname/pseuds/sullymygoodname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Derek get lost in the woods. More or less.</p><p>Or: A sprite traps Stiles and Derek in the woods and messes with their heads a little. (A lot.) There's magic and trippy mind-fuckery, and along the way Stiles and Derek decide they probably don't actually hate each other.</p><p>(Alternate Universe: canon-divergent post-season 2 - I made up my own explanation about the Alpha Pack, so it does not reflect canon in the slightest.)</p><p>Be sure to check out the <a href="http://famedglory.tumblr.com/post/109825183110/masterpost-of-the-art-for-for-the-sterek-big-bang">amazing artwork</a> by <a href="http://famedglory.tumblr.com">famedglory</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Echo In The Light

**Author's Note:**

> [Download the soundtrack!](https://www.sendspace.com/file/tg0k8b)
> 
> This is dedicated to [bluefjords](http://bluefjords.tumblr.com), the actual best person in this world or any other. She is the whole reason I started reading and writing Sterek fic, so you should thank her if you like my work. And she is the one who keeps me going when I feel like giving up. Thank you, Blue!
> 
> HUGE thanks to [theresholesinthesky](http://theresholesinthesky.tumblr.com) for the great beta. She helped clean up my ridiculous, overly-complicated sentences and wrangled all those unnecessary parentheses away from me!
> 
> The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the creator's imagination or are used fictitiously. This story does not reflect the views or opinions of any actual person portrayed herein.  
> ...Anyway, IT'S JUST ~~CLAY~~ ...er, FICTION!

* * *

As he trips through the woods away from the Hale house, Stiles curses himself, the trees, and the ground he walks on. School's out. His dad is back at work full-time. Everyone he knows is safe now. Well, as safe as anyone can be in this world, anyway. And he's a teenager on summer break. He should be out partying, staying up late, drinking irresponsibly, and just generally acting foolish. He's in the prime of his youth, and he'll only be young once!

Except, as safe as all his friends are, they're all _busy_. Without him.

Lately Scott's been spending a lot of time with Isaac, who is still training with Derek, who isn't talking to Scott, who probably hasn't even noticed at all. Jackson and Lydia are together again, and pretending like the rest of them don't exist. So that's pretty much back to normal. Except that Lydia is still talking to Stiles which would not have been considered 'normal' a year ago. Erica and Boyd are pretty much only talking to each other. Nobody is talking to Allison.

This leaves Stiles mostly on his own, and Stiles should _never_ be left to his own devices. Given too much time to himself, his brain starts to overwhelm him. He needs distractions, forced outside interaction, or he ends up spending six hours down a Google-rabbit hole and forgets time and loses track of the days. Well, that and jerking off, but that's nothing new.

Maybe he should get a summer job. It would certainly keep him busy, and he can always use the extra income — especially since he hates asking his dad for gas money and repairs on the Jeep, which, considering the company he keeps, are basic essentials these days. Although, now that everyone's avoiding each other, his Jeep really hasn't gotten much play since the last time it was in the shop after the whole crashing-through-a-building-and-into-Jackson thing.

Except for tonight, apparently, because — _motherfuck!_ — has someone stolen it? Stiles stops short, looking at the surrounding forest. He knows he parked closer to the Hale house than this; it hadn't taken him this long to walk up there. And when did it get dark out? He gazes up at the glittering blue-black sky, but it gives him no indication of the time.

"What are you still doing out here?"

"Whoa!" Stiles yelps and whirls around, clutching his chest. "Derek! _JEEZ!_ " He points a finger at Derek's face. "One of these days you're going to sneak up on me and I'll... do something. Something bad and unexpected. To you." He tries to catch his breath and slow his heart all while giving Derek his best glare. Derek is immune.

"I heard you at the house."

"Yeah." Stiles shifts his weight and drags a hand through his hair, giving up on ever appearing smooth in his life. "I left a copy of the bestiary for you. Lydia finished translating it."

Derek's eyes flick down and back up too quickly for Stiles to parse. "You could've knocked," he says, in that same even tone. Stiles blinks back at him.

"On what? You don't have a door anymore." Nope, the Alpha pack had obliterated that. "I mean, I _could've_ just walked right in — anybody could! But that seemed like... um, overstepping? Or something?" Also, the rest of the roof could go at any time, seriously.

Yeah, the Alphas had busted down the door and most of what remained of the walls when they took Peter. They just _took_ him. Apparently you don't get to go on an Alpha rampage without answering to the Alpha law. Not that Stiles misses the psycho or anything, but he was Derek's last living family member and they have no clue what the Alphas will do with him. It was another week after that before Derek finally tracked down where the Alphas had stashed Erica and Boyd, and his pack hasn't really been the same since. With the aforementioned Isaac spending all his spare time with Scott, and Erica and Boyd keeping their distance from everyone, Derek's pretty much alone these days. And remembering that makes Stiles feel like a total dick.

"Anyway." Stiles scratches the back of his head, looking anywhere but at Derek. "I gotta head home before my dad gets there, so I'll just…" He turns to start walking again, but falters mid-step, unsure which direction he was headed.

"Stiles. How long have you been wandering around out here?"

"I'm not wandering around." He straightens his shoulders and glances back at Derek. "I'm just walking back to where I parked my Jeep. Which is... um, this way." Stiles jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "I think."

"You were at the house over an hour ago." Derek's got one eyebrow raised in that you're-an-idiot face of his. 

"What? It hasn't been that long." _That's impossible._

"I only came out here to see why you hadn't left yet. You must've walked a big circle around the house." He pulls one hand out of his jeans pocket and points the same direction Stiles had pointed. "Which is that way." Then Derek blinks and tips his head to one side. "Or, no, wait, it's..." He moves in a slow circle, peering through the trees.

"Seriously? _You_ got turned around in these woods? Don't you, like, own these woods? If you can get lost, you can't really blame me for—"

"Shut up," Derek snaps, flapping a hand in Stiles's direction as if he can physically knock the words down.

Stiles just laughs. "You got lost in your own backyard, dude."

"I'm not lost. Shut up," he repeats through gritted teeth.

"Don't be so touchy."

"I'm serious. Be quiet. I hear something." Derek moves closer to him, and Stiles wraps his arms around himself, suddenly nervous but unwilling to admit it.

"Something like a chipmunk?" Stiles jokes in a half-whisper. "Or something like a were-saber-toothed chipmunk?"

"Something like _shut u_ —"

"With glowing eyes maybe," Stiles says, more loudly this time, looking past Derek and ducking to the ground just as the glowing eyes dive-bomb his head.

Stiles rolls onto his side and looks up. The glowing 'eyes' turn out not to be eyes, but a tiny, blue-green ball of fiery luminescence. It dives down at Stiles again, then swirls back around and circles Derek in a dizzying trail of light. He falters backward, swiping out at the shimmering glow, and trips over Stiles's splayed legs.

Derek lands on him like a piano in a cartoon, complete with discordant soundtrack, squashing all of Stiles's squishy bits and knocking the wind out of him. Black spots burst across his vision, but he catches sight of the light-ball zooming past them and on into the trees. Derek rolls up and into a crouch beside Stiles, allowing him to curl onto his side in a fetal position.

"What the hell," Stiles wheezes, "was that? Was that a fairy? Did we seriously just get attacked by a fairy?"

"No," Derek says slowly, like he's not entirely certain. He rises to stand fully, leaving Stiles on the ground. "I think it's a sprite."

"What's the difference?" Stiles grumbles, slowly uncurling his body. Everything hurts. He climbs carefully back to his feet on his own. No help from Super-Strength Weighs-A-Ton over there or anything.

"I don't know," answers Derek, mildly, like Stiles isn't going to have _bruises_ after this. "I didn't know they were real."

Stiles doesn't even bother looking at Derek, too busy trying to pick sharp pebbles and twigs out of his palms. "Then how do you know what it is?"

"Stories. My mo—" Derek cuts off, and Stiles looks up at him then. He's clenching his jaw. "My mother used to tell us about all kinds of... other creatures. Myths and legends and magic."

Unsure what to say at first, Stiles busies himself trying to brush dirt off his hands and clothes, but gives it up as a lost cause. "Bedtime stories for werewolves," he says finally, straightening up. "That's gotta be interesting."

Derek starts walking away from him then, but throws back over his shoulder, "What, your mother never read you fairytales when you were a kid?"

Stiles stops still, eyes on Derek's back for a moment, before jogging to catch up.

"I won't talk about your family again, you don't talk about my mom," he says when he reaches Derek's elbow and keeps pace with him. In his peripheral vision, he sees Derek turn his face toward him and give a tiny nod in acknowledgement.

They walk on in silence for a while, nothing but the sound of their footsteps on hard-packed dirt. Stiles is letting Derek lead not because he believes Derek knows where he's going, but because he hasn't a better idea at the moment. He can only stand silence for so long, though.

"Okay, so what do these sprites do then?" asks Stiles. "Is it evil? Do we have to kill it? I'd like to go a whole week without having to kill something. Seriously. I'm contemplating becoming a vegetarian to compensate for all the death." He's not, actually. That would be horrible.

"In the stories, they're mostly just mischievous," Derek tells him, sounding more put-upon than Stiles thinks is strictly necessary. But mostly he's trying not to openly gape at the fact that Derek pronounced 'mischievous' correctly. "Think Robin Goodfellow," Derek expands with a gesture of his hand. He glances over at Stiles when he doesn't respond. Derek's eyebrows go up. " _A Midsummer Night's Dream_?" Stiles still stares. "Shakespeare," Derek huffs at him, _much_ more exasperated now.

"We haven't gotten to that section in English class yet," Stiles says, a little defensively.

Derek rolls his eyes, shaking his head. Stiles feels dumb. He crosses his arms over his chest, and stalks a pace behind Derek. It's not fair that Derek should make him feel dumb. And even dumber still for questioning Derek's intelligence. He wonders if Derek was a good student. Stiles concedes he's probably super book smart, 'cause he's got _zero_ common sense.

He walks right into Derek's back when he stops abruptly. Stiles bounces off, stumbles, but catches himself before he falls. "Jeez, warn a guy, would you."

"Watch where you're going from now on," Derek replies, tone indifferent. "Given the kinds of things you've run into in these woods before, one would think you'd be careful to remain more aware of your surroundings." He speaks calmly, but he keeps gazing around them like he's expecting another attack.

That's when Stiles finally takes note of their surroundings. "Speaking of," he says, eyeing up the space around them. "Where are we, exactly? Because this looks… different."

They're in a clearing, which isn't unusual in itself — these woods are full of natural clearings and bare areas. No, what's weird is that it's a perfect circle, exact in its dimensions, and the trees enclosing it look like a solid mass of greenery. Nothing about it feels ordinary or _natural_.

Derek moves backward, closer into Stiles, his left arm reaching behind him to curl in an arc around Stiles's body. Like a shield. He backs up another step, this time pushing Stiles, and starts to turn. "Let's go back the way—"

It's gone. The opening in the trees from which they'd come is just gone, swallowed up by dense forest.

"You were saying about paying attention to your surroundings?" Stiles quips at him. He moves toward the trees, to go back the way they came anyway, but Derek latches onto his arm and holds him back.

"They can’t alter reality," Derek says, and it sounds as though he's tugging forth some long ago memory. "They can’t alter reality, only your perception of it."

Stiles glances from the trees to Derek. "That’s not really better," he says. It doesn't matter if what they think is real isn't real, they'll still _think_ it's real. Stiles is about to say this aloud, no matter the glares it'll earn him, when Derek's hand rips violently from Stiles's arm.

"Ow! Hey!" Stiles yells, grabbing his own arm. There's a sharp burning sensation where Derek's fingernails scraped across Stiles's skin, but there's no blood, no gouges.

"Stiles, run!"

"What?" Stiles looks back up at Derek and— "Oh holy crap! Are you freaking kidding me?!"

Thick, thorny vines are winding themselves around Derek's arms, his legs, his waist, and chest. He slashes at them with his claws, but they just keep coming, growing up out of the ground to wrap him up in tight coils. He's dragged down to one knee, the veins in his arms and neck bulging with the strain of trying to break free.

Stiles loses too much time to shock, standing there helplessly. It's like that scene in _Evil Dead_ (the original, not the remake) and, seriously, he doesn't want to watch Derek be violated by a forest. But he's not going to run. Where would he even go? He starts toward Derek, darting his eyes around for a weapon of any kind, something bat-like that he can swing at the vines. Something sharp would be even better.

He spots a long stick on the ground — it won't be sharp enough to slice the vines, but maybe he can use it to leverage a few of them away from Derek, give him enough room to wriggle out of the tangle. As he runs past, Stiles reaches down for it and grasps dry bark in his sweaty fist, using his momentum to pull it up in a fluid movement that he thinks Coach would be proud of, except his next step never lands. Stiles is yanked back by the hand clutching the stick, only now the stick is clutching _him_.

The rough, brittle bark flexes and curls around his wrist, dragging him away from Derek. It's not just a downed branch lying on the ground; it's rooted in the earth. And it's growing. A massive tree trunk shoots up out of the ground. Very _Jack and the Beanstalk_ , Stiles thinks, a bit hysterically, as he dangles by one arm above the dirt floor of the clearing. He kicks his feet out, trying to pull free, but the more he struggles the tighter the hold becomes, scraping and grinding against his skin.

The trunk keeps growing, taller and taller, more branches sprouting out in all directions, carrying him high up into the air. Seeing the ground so far below, Stiles stops struggling to break free and pulls himself up instead. It's a mean feat, pull-ups have never been his thing, but he manages to wrap his free arm around the branch and swing his body up enough to hook both legs around, as well, locking his ankles together. Feeling as secure as possible, he chances a look back down at the ground — which actually has him craning his neck back and looking 'up' in this position — for Derek.

There's no Derek. There's just a writhing pit of brambles covering the ground. The vines have overtaken Derek so completely that Stiles can't even tell which part of the mass he's under.

"Derek?!" he calls out anyway, hoping for a growl or roar of acknowledgment. There _is_ noise down below, but it sounds more like the creaking of wood in an old house settling or the squeaky hinges of a rusty porch swing. "Shit, please still be alive," Stiles whispers mostly to himself.

He's maybe twenty or thirty feet off the ground now and still rising. Stiles is bad at judging distances, but it certainly looks a lot higher than that time he fell off Scott's roof. He isn't that far out from the wide trunk of the tree, though. With a sharp twist of his forearm, the bark encircling his wrist snaps and flakes away. Ignoring the rubbed raw skin around his wrist, he wraps that arm around the branch, too. Glad that he wore long pants today despite the warm weather, Stiles begins to shimmy further in toward the trunk, sliding his legs down the rough bark and alternating hand-holds. Once his butt hits the trunk, he scrambles for better purchase and hauls himself around so that he's now straddling the branch rather than hanging upside-down.

He takes a moment to let the dizziness fade as the blood drains from his head. If he stretches, his foot just touches the branch below and to the right of him. Gathering himself, and taking a deep breath, Stiles swings one leg over to sit sideways, grabbing a branch overhead and stretching his foot out to test his weight on the one below. It feels solid enough. He carefully climbs down onto it, balancing his weight until he can grab another one lower down. He repeats this maneuver twice more, making his way a few feet down the tree. There's a long way to go, but thankfully it doesn't look too difficult a climb.

Below him on the ground, the vines have calmed and the twisting, groaning sounds have ceased. They've become like a carpet, textured and solid, but motionless. If Stiles can climb down low enough to drop to the ground, he's going to end up landing on all that.

The next lower branch is just out of his reach. To get hold of it, Stiles inches out away from the trunk. He doesn't want to go out too far and risk the branch snapping under his weight, but if he _does_ fall he can always hope to catch one of the many others on the way down. Or he'll just hit every single one and maybe that'll knock him out. Landing is going to hurt either way.

Just as he settles his weight, Stiles hears a low crack. He freezes in place, holding his breath and everything. There's another crack, and another, more, a fast rippling of sounds, but they aren't coming from his tree. The clatter is down below. He peers into the dark, down at the brambles. They move, a shivering sway, filled with the dry crackle of snapping wood. The rustling movements grow faster, louder, more vigorous, until a dark shape explodes out of the pile and up onto the trunk of the tree.

"Derek!" Stiles tightens his grip so he can lean out and get a better look.

Derek's head tips back, his eyes red and aimed right at Stiles, clinging to the tree trunk by his claws. He starts climbing, leaving long trenches in the bark.

"Wait, no," Stiles shouts to him. "I'm trying to get down."

"I'm not going back into that!" Derek yells up at him, still climbing, and even as he says it Stiles sees the vines below come alive again, twining up the trunk of the tree and chasing after Derek. One slim tendril slithers around his ankle, but Derek keeps going. He digs his claws deep into the bark and pulls his leg up, breaking free of the vine with a harsh, tearing _shzzrrp!_ More vines follow, snaking up the tree after him.

He's not going to make it all the way up to Stiles.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Stiles breathes in and out. He can do this. He pushes himself up into a crouch on his branch, then shoves off, stretching both arms out to catch the one below him and swing himself around the trunk of the tree until his feet hit solid wood. He stands on this new limb for a second, bouncing in place, then lets go and drops down heavily onto it. His foot slips and nearly sends him toppling off, but Stiles manages to land in a straddle and get both arms wrapped around it. He hugs it tightly, and thanks the universe for not squishing his balls just then.

"What are you doing?" Derek calls from below, still making his way slowly up.

Stiles looks down, but he can't actually see Derek from this angle. He sits up and starts reaching for the next lowest branch. "I'm coming down to help you," Stiles tells him, leaving the _'obviously'_ unspoken.

"Don't," Derek says. "Climb farther out. Go away from the center."

"What?" Stiles studies the tree limbs stretching out into the darkness, tapering off into thin, leafy twigs that will definitely not hold his weight. "No way! This is really high!"

"You're afraid of heights?" asks Derek, coming into view and swinging his legs up onto the lowest limb of the tree. He sounds out of breath, but has finally made it up into the tree proper and is no longer forced to cling to the trunk like an angry koala.

"No," says Stiles, with as much sarcasm as he can muster given his current circumstances. "I am afraid of plummeting to the earth and landing on my _head_."

"Surely it wouldn't be the first time," Derek scoffs, and Stiles makes a face at him even though he's not looking. Derek's pulled himself upright on the lowest branch now, and he starts walking outward like he's on the balance beam in P.E. Occasionally he reaches up to steady himself, but he's clearly in no danger of falling. He's going out pretty far, too. Leaving Stiles behind.

"Wait, Derek," Stiles calls out to him, breath catching in his throat and heart rate picking up. His voice is edging into the high pitch of panic. "What is your plan, then?"

With one arm stretched to hold onto a branch above his head, Derek pivots elegantly on one foot to look up and face him. "We're going to jump."

Stiles just stares at him. He doesn't think Derek is feeling the full effect of it, though, so he stares harder, bugging his eyes out until they hurt.

"Are you nuts?!" he shouts, to complete the picture he's going for here. The tree has finally stopped growing, but it's at least a fifteen or twenty foot drop to the ground from where _Derek_ is standing, and Stiles is about ten or so feet above him and maybe five or seven feet further in toward the trunk. Even if he could inch his way outward, the boughs would definitely break and next would be this baby's damn neck.

He can't exactly go down the trunk as he'd originally planned, however, now that he looks. The vines are still winding their way up slowly, but they're keeping firmly wrapped around the trunk and not venturing out onto the branches.

"Just climb out this way and down," Derek says, like it's easy as pie. (Stiles has tried to make pie. Pie is _not_ easy.) "Those vines aren't covering the whole clearing, only the center around this tree. We can jump down, out toward the edge there, and run for the woods without getting caught."

Stiles glances to the tree line at the edge of the clearing, the ground below him, the tangling vines, and Derek waiting with his arm outstretched. It all sounds logical but...

"I'm gonna fall," he says, plaintively, not liking how his wobbly voice matches his wobbly, precarious position.

Derek takes two steps closer to him, craning his neck back to keep Stiles in sight. "Look," he says, "just make it to here." Derek points to a spot right above his head. "And I'll grab you. I won't let you fall."

"And then what?" Stiles rocks back and forth, judging the distance.

"Then you can land on me when we jump to the ground," says Derek, familiar exasperation lacing each word.

"Promise?"

Stiles can't see his face clearly in the dark, but he's sure Derek is rolling his eyes. "I promise, Stiles."

Stiles sticks a toe out, tapping the branch below him. It's still not close enough for his liking. "If I break my leg or something, you won't just leave without me?"

"Stiles," Derek huffs, patience evaporating. "I'm not going to leave you here." He pulls himself up onto the branch above his head, gracefully like a flippin' acrobat, moving in a little closer toward Stiles, and reaches out both hands to him. "Now come on. It's not that far."

There are still several daringly placed branches and a few feet of air between them, but Stiles thinks maybe he can do this. Derek said he wouldn't let him fall. Derek _promised_.

Stiles gets both hands on his branch and starts to swing down when there's a lurch in his stomach and his feet go flying upward, spinning him around into something like a handstand.

"What the hell?!"

"Stiles!"

His grip is slipping. Stiles looks down at his feet, his feet that are now pointing upward into all the branches he'd just climbed down. He can feel himself falling before it happens, his fingers clawing at the bark but losing all the same. Stiles goes soaring into the branches crisscrossing his vision, smacking into each one just like he thought he would. Only he's falling in the wrong direction. And it is like falling, like gravity is reversed.

Derek shouts something below him, maybe his name, but Stiles barely hears. He fights wildly as he passes, leaves whipping his face, knuckles knocking and bloodied, until finally curling around a thin shoot, just big enough to clutch in his fist.

Stiles latches on with both hands, and looks up to see all the branches trembling, Derek's red-red eyes blazing back at him, and the hard-packed earth and thorny vines far, far above. Then he shifts to look down the length of his own body where his feet dangle above the vast abyss of the night sky, tiny pinpricks in the fabric winking light back at him.

"Oh god oh god oh god," Stiles chants under his rapid breaths. His heart hammers in his chest, ribcage squeezing tighter with each labored thump.

The whip-crack of tree branches thrashing above (below) draws his eyes back up (down) to the tree to see Derek coming up fast toward the top of the tree. The very, tippy-top where Stiles is hanging on, swinging dangerously with every movement. He grips tighter, clenching his eyes shut. But it happens whether he's looking or not.

His sweaty palms slide, his stomach plummets to his toes, and the twig snaps, dropping him into the sky.

Stiles falls. The tree and the clearing and the woods and the world rush away from him as he descends into the black. Impact surprises him more than the icy cold and metallic tang of lake water. The last thing Stiles sees before plunging into murky depths is Derek at the top of the tree jumping into the sky after him.

 

 

Weightless.

After the persistent pull of gravity, the strain of hanging on and muscles being stretched to their limits, it has all melted away into the shimmering blue-green of the cradling water.

If he'd known the sky was an ocean, Stiles would have remembered to take a deep breath first.

The panic never has time to set in before hands clamp steadfast and bruising around his waist and heave him above the breakers. The first inhale stabs like glass shards in his lungs. The arm wrapped around his chest hugs him tightly to solid warmth as they're swept away in a rapid current.

It's not an ocean or a lake, but a river; the forest whizzes by, a smear of shadowed green and brown. Derek holds him with one arm and swims with the other, his feet kicking fervidly below the surface. They make it to the muddy bank before Stiles even has time to think of helping. He digs his fingers into the muck, fighting against the drag of the current.

Derek's large hand grips the back of Stiles's pants, hooking his fingers into the waistband and hauling Stiles up the bank and out of the water. He'd make a joke about copping a feel, but he's too busy coughing and spluttering. His lungs can't decide if they want oxygen more than they need to expel water. Loose soil and small stones skitter through his fingers with each clump of earth he grabs. Derek's doing a lot better with claws for assistance, and they finally make it up to the grassy ledge and over.

Stiles flops onto his back, breathing hard, eyes unfocused and staring blankly into space. Towering, pointed treetops poke into the blank expanse of sky above. Definitely above. Firm, solid ground beneath him. Stiles blinks then closes his eyes to block it all out.

"S-so that was t-t-terrifying," he puffs through chattering teeth. The already icy cold water on his skin and soaked clothing is freezing in the cool night air. And it's supposed to be _summer_. He curls onto his side and huddles in on himself, rubbing his arms to generate some heat. It's not really working, just wringing water out of his clothes into little puddles in the grass.

Derek's not looking much better, jeans heavy and waterlogged falling down his hips, gray t-shirt nearly see-through and clinging to every curve of muscle... Stiles takes that back; Derek looks _waaaay_ better.

Stiles wipes his face with one hand, and pushes his hair back out of his eyes. He's started letting his hair grow out this summer, on a whim, but it's still at that awkward stage where he can't really style it yet. Mostly it sticks up in odd tufts, or falls flat over his forehead.

Beside him, Derek sits up with a deep frown creasing his face, eyebrows drawn down almost comically. Stiles pushes himself up with one hand, about to comment, when he looks at what Derek is looking at.

The roaring river from which they'd just dragged themselves is nothing but a trickling stream, barely three feet wide.

"Okay, that is unacceptable," Stiles declares, sitting up fully next to Derek. "I could've _hopped_ over that. Like a bunny. What the hell?" He fists a handful of his shirt and squeezes more water out. "But no. Here I am, soaking wet and freezing my ass off."

"At least you're out of the tree."

He turns his head, so very slow and deliberate, to glare at Derek. "Oh, hah. Ha funny. _Now_ you know how to make jokes. If there's a T.rex chasing us after this, it's your fault."

Derek says nothing, and so Stiles says nothing for a while, too. They watch the thin flow of water over smooth rocks until Stiles starts to feel like he needs to pee.

"So, like, where the hell are we?" Stiles asks, to distract from that, but also because it's an important question. Relevant. "Are we—I mean, that just happened, and who even knows how, so are we still in Beacon Hills?"

Next to him, Derek inhales deeply through his nose. "It smells the same."

"But can we even trust our senses?" Stiles thinks about this for a second. " _Your_ senses, I guess, because woods smell like woods to me. Could you tell if we'd been, I dunno, teleported to a forest miles away? Just by smell?"

Derek stands up, his painted-on, soggy jeans creaking as he moves. "Every place has its own unique scent," he says. "Not just the land or the air, but the people and everything else around it contribute to that."

"You can smell everyone in Beacon Hills? We have a collective smell?" Stiles wrinkles his nose. "It can't be good."

"Not... that isn't—I don't know how to explain it in words," Derek says, sounding almost defeated. "It's a sense. It's like trying to explain colors to someone who's never been able to see them."

"I saw a movie once where this kid managed that just fine," Stiles tells him. "It was to get into the girl's pants, I'm sure, and it was a super old movie, like from the eighties, and I think the actress wasn't blind in real life, but still. Somebody wrote that, so it could be possible." Stiles tips his head back to look up at Derek. Derek just stares back down at him. "Also, I have a nose and a perfectly good sense of smell," he adds, but now he's looking past Derek's shoulder, distracted.

"Your brain doesn't process it the same way mine does."

"Huh." Stiles blinks his focus back to Derek for a second; these are the kinds of probably-considered-to-be-trivial things he always wants to ask about werewolves most, but they're always in the middle of something bigger and more important. Like now.

The grass rustles beneath Derek's boots when he turns and starts to move away. Stiles blinks as Derek's legs pass through his field of vision, then he scrambles to his feet to follow.

"Okay, _Mr. Smell-O-Matic Three-Thousand_ ," Stiles says, catching up. "If we're still in Beacon Hills, what happened to the sky?" He gestures over their heads. He'd known something was off while lying on the ground a few minutes ago staring up at it, but his brain wasn't entirely caught up at the time. Now that he's up and cognitive, he can process what his eyes had been telegraphing to his mind.

The stars are gone.

It wasn't overcast earlier; while he was dangling from that tree, there were stars aplenty. Before he fell into the sky and came out the other side, that is. It doesn't look like it's overcast now, either. There's a texture to a cloudy sky, even at night. This is just blank. Open and empty and solid black.

"I had noticed that," Derek says, barely glancing up. "I told you, they mess with our perception. Take the stars away, take away a means of navigation. Obviously, it wants us to wander around and get lost." He smirks then. "Perhaps it's underestimating my senses, too."

Stiles pauses at that. He wasn't underestimating Derek. He wasn't! He was just making a very logical observation and perhaps also intimating that all of this is insane. If they can't trust their eyes, how can they trust their... or Derek's nose?

What he says is, "You know how to navigate by stars?"

Derek merely shrugs and continues walking at what Stiles might generously call a leisurely pace.

"All right, okay," says Stiles, stumbling along next to him. "But if they can't change reality, only perception, is that even there?" He points up to the sky again. "Is it even night? Was there ever a river? Am I really wet?"

The squelching of his shoes and chafing of wet boxers inside his pants would suggest yes. Derek doesn't answer. Perhaps he thinks everything Stiles says is rhetorical.

On impulse, Stiles reaches over and pinches Derek's side right below his armpit. Derek jerks away and turns to glare at him.

"What was that for?"

"I was just testing if this was a dream."

"You're supposed to pinch _yourself_ ," Derek says through gritted teeth.

"But that would hurt."

"Not as much as when I pinch you back." He raises one hand between them, and clicks his claws together in Stiles's face. Though he sounds the same as always, murderous and kind of weary about it, the threat isn't in his eyes. Derek drops his hand and says nothing more.

"Really, though," Stiles continues. If Derek's not going to interject, Stiles is going to keep talking. "Like, if I'd fallen out of that tree — you know, fallen the right way, by which I mean _down_ — and broken my neck, would it really be broken or would I only think it was broken?" His left shoe skids in the grass and nearly pops off his foot, sending Stiles reeling not to fall over.

Derek catches him by the elbow. "Let's… not find out." He releases Stiles once he's steady. "Come on."

Busy trying to fix his shoe on properly, more tightly this time, Stiles looks up to see the back of Derek walking away from him again. "Wha—but where are we going?"

"I—" Derek seems to hesitate for the briefest moment, but never stops walking entirely. "This way. We're going this way," he says firmly.

"If you say so," Stiles sighs, checking his laces one last time. "Hey, wait up!" Derek does not, in fact, wait up. Stiles has to jog to catch him, watching his feet so as not to trip again. "You said you wouldn't leave me behind."

"I'm not," Derek protests. His hand moves unexpectedly toward Stiles, like he might grab him, but then Derek draws it back to his side. "Just keep up."

Stiles does his best, but the actual path they're on now is winding this way and that, not allowing them to walk side-by-side. Stiles trails after Derek, trying his best to keep close without stepping on the backs of his heels.

He keeps up his litany of questions, not really expecting any answers at this point, and veers off into expounding on his own knowledge. Or lack thereof, as the case may be. "I haven't finished reading the whole thing, but I don't recall anything about this in the bestiary. No mention of fairies at all. Or sprites, or whatever you called it. Definitely no magic mushroom level, hallucinatory adventures with trees."

"It wasn't a hallucination," says Derek, the first words he's spoken in a long while. _But that means it was real then, right?_ Stiles wonders.

The path takes a right angle; Stiles is busy focusing on their feet. "You never did say if you got the copy I left for you."

Stray branches snag Stiles's shirt, hooking around his arms and shoulders. He flails wildly, slapping leaves out of his face. He might screech just a tiny bit, but he is so not up for getting abducted by another tree.

Thankfully, they are inanimate tree branches this time, and Stiles manages to duck out of their clutches. He rubs both hands over his head, feeling that creeping sensation of something crawling on him. He looks up. The trees arch over their heads, blocking out the empty sky entirely. The forest feels as if it's closing in around them. It's almost viscerally oppressive.

"Derek..." Stiles says hesitantly in a low voice, "I don't think this is a good way to go."

Still looking above him into the dense canopy of gnarled tree limbs and dark greenery, Stiles keeps moving forward until he bangs right into a solid, flat wall.

An actual wall.

It's the forest, but it's a wall. Trees, ground, dirt, enveloping darkness, all flattened in a picture before him. He rubs his chin; there's a small scrape. Looking up again, he sees that the forest motif extends up and across the ceiling; the floor is a dusty hardwood. The wall itself is unyielding when Stiles pushes on it. The wallpaper feels coarse and woven, like canvas, under his fingertips. He traces the outline of a tree branch stretching horizontally along the wall, and that's when he sees Derek.

No wonder he didn't answer. Talking to Derek is sometimes like talking to a wall, but now it is exactly like that because Derek is inside the wall. He's _part of the wall._ Standing, two-dimensional, just a few inches from Stiles's fingers.

Derek's mouth opens, surprising Stiles enough to make him jolt back. He'd looked so flat, so still, just a painting of a man in a forest. Derek's hand moves then, up to where Stiles is still touching the wall. His movements are jerky, like a film dropping several frames of footage. It looks like he's trying to say something, but there's no sound.

"Derek?" Stiles tries, and his own voice echoes back at him. Derek looks away into the landscape behind him. Glinting through the trees, is a small, shimmery, blue-green ball of light. Derek's hand drops away from the wall and he moves, stilted and too quick, toward the light. "Derek, no! Wait!"

Stiles follows him along the wall, down the narrow corridor he now finds himself in. All signs of the supposed Beacon Hills Preserve are gone, save the forest-themed wallpaper on all sides.

The blue-green light grows dimmer, skipping away and out of sight. Derek chases after it. Stiles chases after Derek, beating his palm against the wall and shouting for him to come back.

He rounds a corner and Derek is gone. The forest wallpaper is gone. Stile spins around to go back, but he's surrounded now by bare white walls. Overhead, fluorescent lights flicker in a row along the length of the corridor, gleaming in bright pools on the white floor tiles.

Very, very familiar looking tiles.

His feet move, shuffling along. The hallway is much wider than before, with evenly spaced doors on either side. The third door on the right, that's the one Stiles is headed to, automatically like muscle memory taking over.

The door is only slightly ajar, pushed just so to block out the lights from the hall, but never closed completely. Just the way she always requested.

Stiles places his trembling hand on the door. It makes no sound as it slowly opens; everything in this place is hushed and dim. The bed, shrouded in muted neutral tones, is right opposite the door, white linens washed gray in the filtered light from the covered window. Stiles steps inside the room.

"Mom?" His voice quavers, uneven and broken.

She lies there; she's always so still these days. Stiles draws forward, one shaky step at a time. If she's sleeping, it'll be okay. He can sit with her all day while she sleeps.

But what if she looks at him this time and doesn't know who he is? She couldn't remember his name before. When he told her, his real name, the one she gave him, she'd smiled and said _'Oh, funny coincidence, my father is called that, too.'_

Dad had cried silently behind her. Stiles hates it when his dad cries. Nothing is right and whole world is terrifying when his dad cries.

The sheets rustle and she turns her face to him. Her dark hair fans out on the pillow under her head, her eyes are open and clear, and she smiles. "My beautiful boy," Mom says, reaching out her hand toward him.

Stiles goes to her, a graceless little dash of arms and legs, and slumps into the bed by her side. "Mom," he says, pushing his face into her neck. She makes a space on the pillow for him, so they can watch each other. She's so tiny next to him; she'd been forgetting to eat again. But Stiles is still smaller than her, small enough to hide in her arms. Was smaller. He was.

"How was school?" she asks.

"Okay," Stiles replies, settling deeper into the bedding, his chubby little fist clutching her gown. "Jackson's still a butthead."

Dad would have given him a stern look for saying that, but Mom just laughs, light and airy, like wisps of smoke fluttering away on a breeze. She cups his cheek in one frail hand, and Stiles closes his eyes. She smells of vanilla and coconut oil, masking the bitter hospital smells. Her hands are usually a little clammy, but her palm feels dry against his face. Her hair is wiry, pricking against his ear mashed into the pillow. But he's warm everywhere, swaddled in feathery softness. He could sleep here. He could just stay here always and then she wouldn't leave.

Stiles opens his eyes and Mom is standing above him looking down. He's the one in the bed, tethered to it by wires and hospital corner sheets.

"It's time to go now," Mom says, her hand slipping away from his face.

"No, Mom, wait." Stiles tries to sit up, to reach for her, but he's held down and can't extend his arms. "Please don't leave."

She floats away from him.

"Mom? Mom, wait! Please!"

The low light in the room brightens, illuminating the white walls until they glow themselves with eerie intensity. His mom's white gown blends with the wall, engulfed in radiance. Her hair forms a dark halo around her, and her eyes shine a beautiful blue-green. Stiles struggles out of the bed, thrashing until the restraints fall away.

"Mom! Come back!" He lands on hands and knees, slipping on the tiles. The light is so harsh and bright now, he can barely see anything. The room has no boundaries anymore.

She disappears.

Stiles staggers to his feet to run after her, but each step feels like he's sinking. "Please come back," he whimpers. "Why can't you come back?"

His knees hit the floor, and the rest of him follows until his forehead is pressed against the cold tile. He counts to ten, but his chest tightens with each failed breath. His heart thuds an erratic drumbeat in his ears, growing louder and louder, thundering like a stampede. Stiles is shuddering on the floor, vibrations rattling his bones.

Rattling the floor. The _floor_ is shuddering, not him. He snaps his head up to see the walls have returned in all their bright white glory, pulsating to the rhythm of his booming heartbeat. They're not just plain white walls anymore, but mirrors. Stiles looks around and sees his reflection on all sides, continuing into infinity. The glass pulses, looking like ripples in water, getting progressively bigger and faster as the seconds pass. The sound is a constant buzz getting louder. Stiles puts both hands over his ears when the whole room starts shaking and the noise becomes a roar.

A roar.

Stiles looks into the mirror before him, into it and beyond to see a dark, indistinct shape speeding towards him. He has just enough time to duck and cover before it shatters and Derek bursts through, raining glass down all around him.

He leaps into the center of the room, stopping just short of crashing into Stiles, but he grabs Stiles and hauls him up to his feet swiftly without even a pause.

"Did you see her?" Derek asks urgently, holding Stiles by the shoulders.

"She left," Stiles says numbly, not even flinching when broken glass cascades out of his hair.

Derek stops looking around the empty room and peers at Stiles more closely, ducking his head just enough to make eye contact. His eyebrows furrow down, eyes soft but probing. "Who?" he asks gently.

"My mom," Stiles chokes out.

Derek's eyes widen, and he glances all around them again. He leans back from Stiles, but doesn't release the hold on his shoulders.

"We should get out of here before she comes back," Derek says, using his large hands and considerable strength to steer Stiles to the gaping hole where there was once a wall.

"She can't ever come back," Stiles says, shuffling along unresisting.

"Not—" Derek looks at him again. "I'm sorry. Whatever happened, Stiles, I'm sorry. Not her. I meant the sprite. Before _she_ comes back."

Derek flicks broken bits of glass off Stiles's shirt. He even goes so far as to place his hand over Stiles's eyes, tilt his head back, and brush glass out of his hair. Derek's fingers raking through his short hair feels so nice that Stiles starts to lean into him. But then Derek's hands are back on his shoulders, towing him through the obliterated wall and into another corridor.

"She?" Stiles asks, shrugging off Derek's ushering hands. "It's a she?"

"Well, it looked and sounded female," says Derek. "That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but... I'm going with 'she' for now."

Stiles nods, absently, slowly coming back to himself. "Why would it—she, do that to me?" His mom was never there, it was just a game, something messing with his head. "None of it was—" Stiles looks around them, finally taking in the new corridor they've entered. It's dank and dingy this time, with walls the color of filthy sweat-socks. "None of this is real."

"It's real enough," Derek says without looking at him, but he pinches the end of Stiles's t-shirt between his fingers and pulls him a little closer, like he's afraid Stiles was going to wander off. He lets go a second later, though, as if he hadn't meant to do that at all. He seems to be studying the walls, eyes narrowed and head cocked just so.

Stiles doesn't know what he's looking for, doesn't much care at the moment. His insides feel raw and hollow. He wipes at his face just to make sure he's not crying. He doesn't remember crying, but sometimes it hits him by surprise. He finds another sliver of glass stuck to his sleeve and flicks it away, then pats himself down for more. At least his clothes are dry now. All of the scrapes and bruises he accrued from the tree are gone, too.

The hallway takes another turn and suddenly opens out into a bright, airy room with high ceilings and a grand staircase at the center. The walls are washed white, but it's pleasant and welcoming, not the stark, bleak, barren look of the 'hospital' walls.

"Now where are we?" asks Stiles, eyeballing every corner fully expecting something to pop out at them. But everything is just really… nice. It's all pine fresh and clean and homey, full of this sense of calm and wholesomeness.

"We’re in my house," says Derek, so quietly his words can't possibly disturb this peace.

"Oh," Stiles says, surprised but trying to match his reverential tone. He surveys the space again more thoroughly, trying to match up the angles with what he remembers. "I didn't know you were rebuilding?"

"I'm not. I haven't," Derek murmurs, staring around them with wide, glistening eyes. "This is what it looked like. Before."

"Oh." _Oh._ Oh, shit.

He moves closer to Derek, he isn't sure why. Well, he is sure why, he's sure that this is going to be bad for Derek and he shouldn't have to bear it alone. For a minute or two, though, nothing happens. He stands with Derek, uncertain what to do or say and wishing they could just walk out, but going back the way they came doesn't appear to be an option and going through would probably be worse.

Derek notices first, judging by the way his already rigid stance goes even more tense. Stiles hears the footsteps then, a light patter, and a small girl of maybe ten or eleven comes skipping through the room, long, dark pigtails trailing behind her. She spins on bare feet and sticks her tongue out before twirling away and out of the room. A half-second later, another girl, older but with the same dark hair, races after her, followed by two identical little boys. The figures look solid enough, but their sounds are distant. It's like hearing a television or radio from two rooms away.

He feels Derek move as if to follow them, but a tall woman appears then, herding the children back the way they came. Her equally dark hair falls gently over her shoulders, fluttering as she breezes past them with a warm smile on her face. Close enough to touch. Derek could have touched her, but he's just standing there, frozen.

The two boys leap into a waiting man's arms. He has sandy hair and a full beard and Derek's light eyes. The tall woman kisses his cheek, and the younger girl hangs on his elbow like she might try to climb up into his arms, as well. Next to Stiles, Derek makes a soft, tragic sound and both of his hands reach out as though of their own accord. He flinches back, though, pulling his arms abruptly down to his sides. But his gaze never wavers.

In the back of his mind, Stiles becomes aware of the room growing dimmer and shadows creeping across the floor. The figures—Derek's _family_ melts into the gloom as the house gets dark then darker until they're swallowed up in total black. Stiles moves closer still, until he can feel the hairs on Derek's forearm against his knuckles. The warmth radiating from Derek's body and the hushed sound of his breathing are the only things keeping Stiles grounded. The darkness is so complete that he keeps blinking to check if his eyes still work. He feels so tiny in this vast, endless oblivion. His lungs begin working overtime, expanding and contracting too rapidly, and Stiles fears the panic more than the dark. He nearly jumps when he feels Derek's large hand close around his wrist, but that does the trick and Stiles gets himself under control.

Across from them on the wall opposite, a long sliver of light slices through the void, slowly widening as a door opens. It's pure white, almost blinding in its intensity. Stiles shields his eyes, but doesn't miss the silhouettes making their way through the door, a parade of them. He counts eight.

The tallest one turns back briefly, the warm smile vanished from her face, eyes hardened and alarmed.

"That's not the way out."

It takes a half-second before Stiles realizes those words came from his mouth. Too late to stop Derek from lunging after them. The door slams shut and Derek barrels right into it, pounding with both fists. The light behind the door shines through the cracks, framing Derek in a ghostly portrait.

He beats his fists against the wood, and the light around him glows brighter, burns hotter until it explodes into flames, throwing Derek onto his back. The fire quickly spreads, up the walls and across the ceiling, eating up the air around them. Stiles dives to the floor and skids on his knees at Derek's side. His touch seems to stir Derek form his shock; he scrambles up out of Stiles's reach and back toward the doorway. Stiles scrabbles after him, his fingernails gouging into skin and cloth and dusty wood floor.

"No, Derek, no, it's not real, _it's not real!_ " It can't be real.

A large chunk of burning wood and plaster crashes into the floor just bare inches from Stiles, and he leaps back to dodge the flames. A scorching wall of fire springs up between him and Derek, overwhelming heat pushing him back even further. The crackling growl of the fire combines with a low groaning sound, creaks, and pops. Then the floor beneath Derek's feet gives way and he disappears from sight altogether.

Stiles screams Derek's name into the great chasm that was once solid floor. There's not even an echo this time; his voice is lost in the cacophony.

"Shit, this is real. This is real," he mumbles over and over to himself.

The air is filling with heavy, black smoke, and Stiles tries to stay low to avoid suffocating. But he's surrounded by blistering heat; there's nowhere to go. He crouches on knees and elbows with his arms over his head and the neck of his t-shirt covering his mouth. Glancing left and right, he spots an opening, a break in the flames, and scurries that way while keeping his head down. It's the opposite direction of Derek, but the way is clear. Stiles tells himself he'll find a way to circle back and get to Derek. He just has to get out of _this_ first.

It leads into another corridor, _of course_ , but it takes him away from the smoke and flames so Stiles continues on. It swerves and turns and feels like he's doubling back more than once, but the heat and smoke dissipate quickly and the roaring sound of fire quiets with distance. He's eventually able to stand up and walk. The passage is narrow and not very well lit, however, and Stiles has to feel along the walls to guide himself. It gets full dark quickly, his eyes completely unable to adjust, leaving him fumbling blindly for several steps, shuffling his feet ahead of him in case there's anything to trip him up.

After what feels like an eternity in the dark, he sees a faint glimmer up ahead. Eager to get into some light and be able to see again, but wary of walking right back into the fire, Stiles keeps his pace slow and steady. He looks back once and finds nothing behind him. Not just that he can't _see_ anything, but that it no longer exists. It's just an ominous nothingness at his back. He doesn't look again.

Step by step, the weak pool of light up ahead gets closer until it spills over his fingertips. The soothing warmth of the light on his skin contrasts with the cold of the wall under his palm. He hadn't noticed before that the walls are made of rough, porous stone, leaving dewy droplets on his hand.

The light seeps through the tapered end of the passage; the opening is so slender that Stiles doesn't believe he'll fit. He doesn't want to stand here forever, though, and there's no other way out, so he takes a deep breath, releases it all, then turns sideways and tries to suck his stomach in without puffing out his chest. It's a tight squeeze and for a moment he fears his shoulder is stuck, but he puts more force behind his momentum and pops through none the worse for wear.

He shuts his eyes and claps a hand over them for good measure against the sudden, glaring light. Slowly, slowly he moves his hand an inch, two inches from his face, and squints into the dazzling afternoon sunlight. Actual sunlight. Round and yellow and high overhead in the clear, blue sky.

Stiles gives a breathy huff of laughter, something like relief. He tilts his face up to the sun, closing his eyes again, and soaks up the warmth on his skin. It washes over his neck and shoulders, gradually loosening the strained aches in his muscles and joints. He rolls his head, stretching out the tension from his neck, and finally looks around.

He's standing in a garden. There's a stone floor beneath his feet and tall rose bushes all around him. The crevice leading back into the tunnel-like corridor is gone now. Disappeared like the rest of his journey. Stiles heaves a deep breath, turning in a circle. He's in a square, maybe ten feet by ten feet, shaped by tall, sculpted rose bushes. More like hedges, he thinks. He doesn't know anything about gardening, but he's never seen rose bushes like this before. He's just going to assume they're full of thorns.

Precisely in the center of each side, there's an opening onto a pathway leading out of the square. Four paths to choose from, four different directions, and no clue where they lead. Awesome.

Stiles is reduced to _eenie-meenie-miney-moe_ -ing it when he hears a low, deep, guttural growl.

He spins around, but sees nothing in the immediate vicinity. He raises up on his toes to try and peer over the hedges, but they're far too tall. He tip-toes over that way to the west opening (judging by the sun's position overhead) and peeks around the corner. He opens his mouth to speak, but only a croaky, hitching breath escapes. He swallows and tries again.

"Derek?" he asks in a small, quiet voice. The growl this time is short and sharp; Stiles jumps away from the opening and stumbles into the middle of the square again.

 _It's not Derek,_ he thinks, very sure about it for some reason. But he knows wolf noises when he hears them.

"S-Scott?" he asks, even more quietly and without hope.

The answering roar rends the air, shaking all of the tiny green leaves on the hedges, but it's the reverberation in the ground from stamping, massive paws that gets Stiles moving. He turns on his heel and runs in the opposite direction, onto the east path out of the square.

The hedges line the paths out here, as well, marking boundaries and creating angles. Stiles knows not to run in a straight line anyway, so he takes turn after turn, right, then left, then left again, and another right, until he hits a dead end.

"Jeez, seriously," he grunts, angrily, and starts backpedaling. "This place is like a freaking maze."

Stiles stops in his tracks. _It's a freaking maze._

He doesn't let the realization halt him for long; a howl rises up from somewhere off to his left. Stiles hurries back to the last intersection and goes straight this time. He's running parallel to the werewolf, he thinks, but hopefully won't hit another dead end. He hangs the next right, clipping the corner of a hedge and tearing his shirt on the thorns. He hisses at the sting of an open cut on his shoulder, glances briefly down at it and sees a tiny spot of red blooming over the cotton.

The path turns right then right again, and Stiles ends up back on the track he'd just come off. He hesitates, swinging his gaze left and right, deciding which way to try next. Perhaps doubling back would confuse the werewolf? Except it can probably hear him no matter which way he goes, and now he's got the added open wound to be tracked by the scent of his blood. He decides to keep going forward rather than back. In the end, it's probably not going to matter.

In the end, it doesn't.

When Stiles rounds the next corner, he comes face to face with the massive beast blocking the way. There's maybe twenty yards between them, not nearly enough for Stiles to make a run for it with any hope of escape, and the beast knows it. Its hulking shoulders flex, chest heaving with each snorting breath. It taps one foot, its lips curling up... and Stiles knows that beast.

He stares, unmoving, into the blood red eyes of Peter Hale.

On hind legs, Peter stands over seven feet tall. His body is covered in coarse, black fur with a blue sheen in direct sunlight. His mouth full of fangs curves into a grotesque parody of a grin, that same sly grin he'd given Stiles while offering to bite him.

Stiles begins to back away. Even if he doesn't have a shot in hell of making it, there's no way he's going to just stand there and wait for the inevitable. He turns and bolts back the way he came, picking paths at random, all the while his brain is screaming _Peter Hale, it can't be, it can't, he's gone, he's supposed to be gone for good, he's not even an alpha anymore!_ Of all the nightmares Stiles has had these past months, from giant lizards to being locked in a basement to watching everyone he knows die bloody, the one where Peter _doesn't_ ask, where he hunts Stiles down and just _takes_ like he had with Scott, that's the one he's had most often. In the dreams, even setting his monstrous alpha form on fire does nothing to stop him.

Behind him, he can hear galloping so loud it's almost like hoof beats, Peter snorting and stamping like a raging bull, and Stiles imagines hot breath on the back of his neck. The sweat soaking through his shirt, running in rivulets down his face and neck, sets goose bumps up and down his skin in the cooling air. His shadow, puddled at his feet, melds into murky shade as the sunlight disappears behind low, heavy clouds. Stiles hangs a right, then a left, careening around the corner to end up right back in the square where he'd started.

There's no time to catch his breath, Peter's too close behind. Stiles darts across the square to the opposite pathway and shoots down the first turn he comes to. He blows past the next intersection, too hesitant in making a decision on which way to go and he's not slowing down for anything. Peter's gaining on him.

 _Don't look back, don't look back, don't look back._

He looks back, just a quick glance over his shoulder, and Peter's right there barely ten yards behind him now. Stiles trips and goes tumbling into the hedges, thorns catching and ripping at his clothes, face, and arms. Peter's bearing down on him, charging at full speed. Stiles untangles himself from the thorny clutches of the hedge, but can't manage to get his feet under him.

This is it.

He starts to throw his arms over his head and hunker down into a little ball on the ground (he's never claimed to be brave, and some things you just don't want to face head on) when a blur streaks past and rises up between him and Peter. It whips around to face Stiles and—

"Derek!"

He's all wolfed out, mouth contorted by vicious fangs, ears elongated and pointy, eyebrows just gone. His piercing eyes match the roses, and his claws are out, sharp and deadly. The snarl on his lips and the resonant growl in his chest complete the foreboding picture. When he moves toward Stiles, _hurls_ himself at Stiles, Stiles can't help but flinch back.

"Derek?" Those clawed hands grab him roughly and lift him up off the ground. "Oh god please don’t eat me,” he yelps.

As he's slung unceremoniously over Derek's shoulder, Stiles swears he hears a sigh and can even picture Derek rolling his eyes. They're already in motion, each dogged footfall ramming Derek's shoulder even harder into Stiles's gut. He'd complain, but Peter is right behind them, chasing on all fours now. Oddly enough, even with Stiles as a burden, Derek is faster. Peter starts to fall behind, but he's not giving up.

Derek either knows where he's going or is better at making snap decisions because he doesn't hesitate for even a split-second, taking every turn at breakneck pace. Stiles has to close his eyes, nauseated by the jouncing and sense of backward motion. He pops one eye open every few seconds just to keep Peter in sight, though, and hopes that Derek doesn’t run them into a dead end.

He's not expecting the sudden swooping sensation, that indefinable moment right before an elevator begins its descent or a roller coaster cresting the top of hill, before gravity reclaims them. The fall ends abruptly when Derek's feet hit solid ground, jarring a grunt out of Stiles.

"Ugh. I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Don't," warns Derek.

Stiles looks up to see the jagged edges of earth outlining the hole into which Derek has just leapt. Derek continues on into a claustrophobic tunnel, complete with water dripping and metal grates. He stoops low to keep from knocking Stiles's head into the ceiling; Stiles feels a deep well of gratitude inside him toward Derek brimming so full that he's not even going to ask why they've suddenly entered WORLD 1-2 and if there will be sentient mushrooms down here.

Then he sees the two embers of Peter's eyes still following them.

"He's getting closer!" Stiles shouts, accidentally kicking his knees into Derek's chest.

"I know!" Derek responds, gripping Stiles tighter.

"It's Peter!" Stiles tells him.

"I _know_ ," Derek growls, his claws pricking against Stiles's thighs through his pants.

They pass an open grate latched to the wall, then Stiles feels the space open up around them. Derek swings Stiles around like a sack of flour, and sets him on the floor in a large, dusty, cinderblock room.

"Go! Go! Up the stairs!" Derek commands, pushing him almost hard enough to topple him over.

Stiles half-runs, half-hobbles to the stairs ahead of him. He's already on the bottom step when their location registers. That sound he'd been hearing, that dry, husky cackle, is Kate Argent chained to the wall of Derek's basement. Her hair hangs limp and streaked with blood, her arms held above her head, but her smile is wide and her teeth glint in the moonlight streaming through the high windows.

"Oh, sweetie," she rasps, "you'll never make it."

She isn't talking to Stiles, though. Her eyes are locked on Derek, something feral and gleeful lurking in them. Inside the tunnel behind them, Peter roars.

"Go, Stiles!" Derek crowds up behind him, practically lifting him as he follows up the stairs. "We have to get out before the fire starts again."

 _Again?_ "What do you mean, again?!"

"Just go!" Derek shoves him upward, and this time he _does_ lift Stiles off his feet, hurtling him to the landing at the top. Stiles bangs both his knees on the floor and, just as Derek lifts him up again, fire licks up the stairs behind them. "No, no, no, don't stop. Come on," Derek says, yanking him along.

He can feel the heat rising through the floor, and hear Kate's laughter turn to ferocious screaming. But above all that is Peter, snarling and snapping at their heels. His bulky, deformed body barely fits through the stairwell, and he takes a chunk out of the doorjamb when he explodes through after them.

With a hand clamped around Stiles's upper arm, Derek drags him down a hallway and around a corner to the grand main staircase in the center of the house. It's all whole and beautiful again, white walls and solid wood floors, but the heat and crackling flames are rising through the floor.

"Keep going up!" Derek shouts, digging his fingers in.

"Ow! Watch the claws. Can't you, like, retract those?" Stiles asks, taking hold of the banister and propelling himself upward.

"No. I've tried," Derek grits out. "I'm—I'm stuck like this. I can't shift back."

"I thought this was my nightmare," Stiles mutters under his panting breath.

He flies around the railing at the top of the stairs, with Derek right beside him. Below in the open room, flames dance at the corners and flit up the walls, oozing across the floor like lava. In the center stands Peter, a Stygian-esque figure haloed by fire like he's guarding the mouth of Hell.

Or escaping from it.

Stiles would have frozen in place then and there if not for Derek's grip on his arm. Instead, he's dragged down yet another corridor and through a door into a bedroom, green walls papered with baseball and basketball posters. Derek doesn't waste time shutting the door behind them, affording Stiles a glimpse of Peter leaping up the stairs with a trail of flames on his tail. The thick fur covering his body singes and smokes, sparking like a live wire as he stalks down the hall toward them.

Stiles opens his mouth and draws in a thin, quivery breath that whooshes out of him when Derek _shoves him out a window!_

He lands onto an outcropping of roof, steep and narrow, but Derek's still got hold of the back of his shirt in one fist to prevent him from sliding right off. Derek's also practically on top of him, having followed him out the window, and starts shoving and dragging him down the ledge and around the side of the house. The fire is raging inside now, blowing out all the windows. Stiles can't tell if the roaring is his blood rushing past his ears, the fire, or Peter still trapped inside.

At the edge of the roof, with nowhere to go, Stiles tries to inch backward or turn around. Derek picks him up and _jumps_. Stiles watches the ground coming up fast and, even though he really wants to, he can't look away or close his eyes. At the last second, Derek twists in midair, rolling their bodies to land on their sides with Derek taking the brunt of the impact. Stiles hears a distinct _pop_ when they hit the dirt, and Derek's arm hangs a little funny as he pulls them both back up to their feet.

Stiles curses himself, the woods, and the ground as they trip in their lurching blunder away from the Hale house inferno. The parched air is searing at their backs, roasting them through their clothes. They turn around at the shattering of glass and creaking groans, and watch as the roof caves completely and the whole house begins to collapse in on itself.

The only sign of Peter is one gnarled arm reaching out a window toward the sky before vanishing into smoke and rubble. His deafening, desolate wail rings out for long seconds until that, too, is eclipsed by the booming rumble of utter destruction.

Derek hunches into himself, holding his dislocated arm against his ribs. He's breathing hard, his eyes shine wetly, and Stiles doesn't know what to say. He nudges Derek further back, away from the burning wreckage, until the heat isn't quite so overwhelming.

"He died in that house a long time ago," Derek says in his soft, sorrowful manner. "It's where he should've stayed."

Stiles looks over at him, watches his face in the flickering shadows while trying not to stare. He wonders how much of _Derek_ died in that house, and if he thinks he should've stayed as well. Stiles still doesn't know what to say. The fire eats away everything, crumpling and smoldering; it's as though the house is disintegrating before their eyes. Stiles turns away from the sight, wishes Derek would do the same. He shouldn't have to witness this again.

 

 

A while later, Stiles couldn't say how long, the shadows calm in the dying light. Derek bows his head and closes his eyes. When Stiles looks back, the house is gone.

Not burnt to ashes. Not leveled. _Gone._ The earth is green, lush, and smooth, bare but for a single sapling at the center in a pillar of moonlight. 

"What?" Stiles half-chokes, swallowing around the word.

Derek shakes his once-injured arm out and, hesitating only briefly, places his hand on Stiles's shoulder. When Stiles looks up, he points a ways off into the forest, indicating a shimmery blue-green light limning the horizon.

"We're not done yet," says Derek.

"You gotta be kidding me," Stiles mutters, unconsciously leaning into the support of Derek's hand on him. He still feels queasy, but he's pretty sure the bile rising at the back of his throat is from anger more than anything else. "You're not suggesting we follow it, right? Because that is a terrible idea."

But Derek shakes his head and starts leading him away from the sapling that stands in place of his house. "We have to keep going. It's the only way. The only way she'll let us go."

"What? Who? Oh, that thing." Stiles had nearly forgotten about the sprite, the whole reason for this entire night of horror. "How do you know?"

"She told me."

"She what? When? How? What? And why are you still all wolfy?" Stiles glares at Derek's fangs and claws, then up at the bloated round moon high overhead. "It's not even supposed to be a full moon tonight. It's been waning, a week past full!"

"Perception. Screwing with. What about this are you not getting?" Derek says, exerting a little pressure on the back of Stiles's shoulder to turn him forward and get him moving again. "Come on, let's go."

"But where?" asks Stiles. He keeps moving, though, and doesn't shrug off Derek's hand. "And when did you have time for a conversation with the fairy folk?"

"When I was trapped in the house after you left me," Derek says, sounding a little tired but composed, detached even.

Stiles stutters, his heartbeat tripping over itself. "I didn't—I wasn't leaving you, I was gonna come back, but I had to get out, Derek, it was—"

"I know," Derek cuts him off, squeezing his shoulder gently like he really does get it and he wouldn't blame Stiles for it anyway. "But the fire stopped and the house went back… back to like it was. And then it started again. I could hear them screaming, I could reach them this time, and I got them out. One by one. The fire kept restarting until I could get them all. But then Kate was there." He falters, sucks in a ragged breath through his fangs. "I thought if I trapped her, that would be the final… the missing piece. To make it stop. But it told me we both had to make it out. Me and you. So I had to find you, too."

The stinging in Stiles's eyes is what forces him to finally blink and look away. He feels a drip down his cheek and surreptitiously wipes it onto his shoulder. The shoulder that Derek's hand isn't resting on.

It made Derek go back into that house, that fire, that memory, over and over again. This bitch ain't playing.

"Okay," Stiles starts, but he has to clear his throat and try again. "Okay, so where do we go?" he asks, looking to Derek only to see him shrug. "Okay," Stiles exhales, "great."

The blue-green shimmer hovers at the horizon as they move on into denser forest. The night sounds of insects and the occasional owl have a strangely calming effect, insinuating a certain level of normalcy into this otherwise fantastical night. If not for his jittery nerves and present werewolf company, Stiles could believe he's just on an average, peaceful stroll through the woods. An everyday sort of occurrence, nothing out of the ordinary. Not that he ever does that. Nature isn't really his thing. He doesn't go into the woods unless he has a reason. Especially these days.

Although, having Derek by his side wouldn't be so bad during a regular stroll through the woods. Derek did rescue him, after all. He'd also kept to his promise when they jumped.

A light, misting fog slowly rolls in around them, slinking between the trees and blanketing the ground. The peace and calm Stiles was feeling a second ago begins to evaporate until he feels a large, warm hand wrap loosely around his wrist.

Stiles looks down at the hand, then up at Derek, sort of not comprehending how they're attached.

"We keep getting separated," Derek says, with a half-shrug. He slides his fingers down, being careful with the claws, until he can very nearly enclose Stiles's whole hand in his fist. "We shouldn't let it separate us."

Blinking dumbly, Stiles nods. "Okay. Yeah. Just—" He turns his hand so that they're palm to palm, and locks his fingers in place with his thumb resting over Derek's. "S'more comfortable," he mutters. Derek gives a single dip of his chin in acknowledgment.

"So," Stiles breaks the silence a moment later. "So, it told you to come find me?"

"Not exactly," replies Derek, glancing at him sideways. "Just that we both had to make it out." He flexes his hand, tightening his grip just a little. "I told you I wasn't going to leave without you," he says softly.

"I know." Stiles looks away, swallowing around a lump in his throat. "I believe you."

The trees are clumped closer together now, the space between them narrow and twisty. Derek leads, a serpentine route, without ever letting go of Stiles's hand.

"I don't get the maze, though," Stiles says, navigating between two slender tree trunks. "With the roses and disappearing cracks and Peter all _'Here's Johnny'_ coming after me."

"It's playing on our fears, I think." The pass widens again and Derek waits for him to come abreast. "Did that movie freak you out as a kid?"

"Probably." Stiles shrugs. "Actually, I don't know if I've ever watched the whole thing."

Derek stops short then. "Are you joking?" he asks. "Everyone has seen that."

Stiles glances over at him, then stops, struck, and stares. "How do you manage to make that face when you don't have any eyebrows?" Derek's head doesn't even move, but now Stiles can totally picture the _other_ eyebrow raised as well. Stiles shakes his head. "Whatever, I know the good parts," he argues. "It's not like I was even born yet when that movie came out."

"Neither was I. That's no excuse."

"Oh god, I forgot you lived in New York. You probably went to NYU and call them _'films'_ ," Stiles groans, gesticulating wildly, only their hands are still clasped together. He looks at their hands, then at Derek, and can't help but grin a little. Derek rolls his eyes, but there's a tiny, upward curve to his lips, too.

Having a normal conversation with Derek is weird enough, but even more when he's all wolf-faced. Stiles's mind wanders to imagining Derek going about a daily routine all wolfed out: making coffee in the morning; reading the newspaper; separating his whites from darks and folding his skin-tight jeans.

He feels a tug at his hand when Derek starts pulling him along again.

"Grandfather Hale had a big garden a long time ago," Derek says. "I've seen photos. It was nothing quite like that, but he loved his roses. Mom and Peter used to spend a lot of time playing in it when they were young; maybe that was a manifestation from Peter and not you."

A little dumbfounded by the sudden offering of information, _personal_ information, from Derek of all people, it takes Stiles a few seconds to catch up to the conversation. "So, what? That was a Peter part of the nightmare? That's not fair; that wasn't even really him." He narrows his eyes at Derek. "Right?"

"I don't know." Derek looks over at him. "In case you hadn't noticed, Stiles, I have no idea how any of this works."

He's about to retort something along the lines of _'no shit'_ , but out of the corners of his eyes there's a flash of movement between two trees. Stiles whips his head to look, but finds nothing there. Then he hears a rustling behind him.

"Derek," he says as quietly as he can. "I think something's out there."

"Yeah," Derek says, calmly. "They've been there for a while. I've been keeping an ear on them."

"And you didn't think to mention it to me?!" Stiles hisses.

"I don't know who it is yet," Derek whispers back.

"Is it a person?" As soon as Stiles asks, the person materializes out of the fog ahead of them. "Scott!" Stiles starts forward, ready to run toward Scott, but Derek pulls him back by the hand.

"No, he's not really there," Derek says, holding his hand a little too tight so that Stiles can feel claws pressing into his skin now. "It's trying to separate us again." 

"But…" Stiles glances back and forth between them. "It's Scott. He's just standing there. He's waiting for us."

"We have to make it out _together_ , remember?" He holds Stiles's hand up in both of his. "No splitting up."

Stiles nods, slowly. "Okay, yeah. I know, but maybe we should—Dad!"

Over Derek's shoulder, Stiles's father stands amidst the trees. He's in uniform, he has his gun drawn, and he's aiming it right at Derek. Stiles's eyes are wide and he sees Derek's are the same. Slowly, Derek turns to face the sheriff.

"It's not really him," Derek says, and it's obvious he's trying to maintain his calm and collected demeanor, but Stiles can feel his palm sweating and the prick of his claws.

"Get away from my son!" his dad shouts, his face purpling and his gun hand shaking with rage.

"It's not really him," Derek repeats, but his voice is hushed and not nearly as steady as before.

"Derek," comes that patronizing, insidious voice as Peter slips out from behind another tree. He looks human now, and Stiles thinks he looks even more dangerous in this form. Peter _tsks_ , shaking his head. "Have you learned nothing about playing with humans?"

Before either of them can react, an ear-piercing scream announces Lydia's arrival. She stumbles from the dense trees, disheveled but not naked this time, her face contorted in terror.

"Lydia!" It's a basic instinct for Stiles now, to want to run to her aid. Even if she still loves Jackson and will never look at Stiles in that way, she's still _Lydia_.

"No!" Derek catches him, hauling him back to his side. "It's not r—"

"Derek," another female voice cries, tearful and afraid. Stiles and Derek turn together to see Erica and Boyd hanging from a high tree branch, their arms bound above their heads. "Derek, help us."

This time Derek starts to move and Stiles is the one to hold him back. Well, he tries, but his strength, even amplified by desperation, is no match for Derek's. It's Allison stepping out of the fog around Erica's swinging legs that stops Derek in his tracks. She raises her bow and that sends Derek skittering backward. As Allison looses her arrow, Derek pushes Stiles down and curves his body over him. Stiles hears the _thwip_ of it flying past them, then the _thunk_ and twang when it embeds itself into the tree trunk just above his head.

But when he looks up, there's no arrow.

"Stiles!" His father bellows, but it sounds wrong. He sounds angry, not frightened, not worried for Stiles.

"Help us, Derek!" shouts Boyd, and he sounds angry, too. "You're supposed to help us."

"It's not real, Derek. It's not them," Stiles tells him, trying to replicate Derek's earlier confidence. Derek's grip constricts around Stiles's fingers, but he stays in place by his side.

Lydia isn't screaming anymore. She's standing with Peter, watching them intently, and he has his hand around her neck with his claws at her throat. Her head is tipped submissively to the side, and that's how Stiles knows this could never be Lydia. At her feet crouches the Kanima, but the eyes are all Jackson, blue and glowing. His saurian tail swishes back and forth, scales glinting in the moonlight.

"We'll build a new pack, Derek," says Peter, his fangs elongating before their eyes. "Stronger. Better. You just need to come with me."

"No," Derek spits through his own fangs, tugging Stiles closer.

"Come away from him, son." Stiles's dad gestures with a wave, but his voice is commanding and far too reasonable sounding. "Come to me."

In unison, Stiles and Derek step backward.

"Come to us, Derek," Erica says, more inviting now than pleading. Her glossy, red lips widen around gleaming fangs. She shimmies out of her bonds and lands gracefully on her feet. Boyd does the same beside her, his eyes burning gold. Allison sidles up between them. She trails her fingers through Erica's hair, tips her head back almost gently, and presses the blade of a long, thin knife to her throat.

Stiles takes another step back and starts to turn away, to drag Derek away. Dad calls out his name again, slurring the single syllable into a sibilant mess. Erica cries out Derek's name, hitching breaths and hiccupping sobs that sound a little too much like laughter.

Off to the side, hidden between two trees, Stiles sees Scott just standing there.

That infernal blue-green ball of light comes zipping through the trees, skirting around the others and skipping to a stop in front of him and Derek, shimmering at eye level. It whisks around their heads three times and darts off in the opposite direction.

Derek starts to follow it and Stiles squeezes his hand. "Wait," he says, planting his feet as best he can when Derek begins to pull him.

"We're going to lose it," Derek says, already moving to follow again.

"No!" Stiles yanks him back. "I don't—" He glances over at Scott again. Scott nods at him, silent. "I think we should follow Scott."

"It's not really Scott!" Derek bites out, impatiently.

"I know," says Stiles. "I know." He knows it's not really Scott; Scott could never be so still or calm. But he feels that this is right. He just _feels_ it with a strange sense of urgency that if they don't do it now, they won't get another chance. "Look, just… Just trust me. For once, Derek, just trust me."

Derek's eyes narrow at him, roving all over his face, but eventually he nods and lets Stiles take the lead. He doesn't let go of Stiles's hand.

The others shout and call out to them as they pass, but otherwise don't move to follow or trap them. Scott smiles when they approach and turns without a sound. He glides silently through the forest, maintaining his distance ahead even as they try to catch up. He's like a mirage, always just out of reach.

"Stiles…" Derek murmurs with a questioning lilt as the phantom Scott guides a tortuous trail through the forest. He never turns back to make sure they're following; all they have is the back of his head to focus on.

"This is the right way," Stiles insists, giving Derek's hand a squeeze. He can't feel Derek's claws anymore, and he lifts their entwined hands up to check. Gone, nothing but smooth, rounded nails at the ends of Derek's fingers.

Derek glances at him, confused, and then at their hands. Stiles watches realization dawn, his wolf features receding to reveal his more human face, and Stiles decides then that Derek doesn't really look all that different either way. Derek stretches his jaw, tongue swiping out over blunt teeth, like he's just checking. Stiles smiles over at him and Derek pretends like he wasn't doing anything.

The fog ebbs away, shrinking back into the forest as Derek and Stiles enter a large clearing. Scott's nowhere to be seen, but looming before them is the burnt out husk of the Hale house, listing to the west as though it were trying to chase the last light of the day before it could disappear.

"Are… are we back now?" asks Stiles, warily glancing around.

Derek releases a long, slow breath, staring up at his decrepit house. "Yeah," he says, quietly. "We're back."

"How do we know this is the _real_ real world, though?"

"It's real." Derek's shoulders drop, and Stiles can feel his muscles shedding tension like an exoskeleton. "You can tell by how much everything sucks."

Stiles snorts indelicately, an involuntary response. He stares up at the house, too. "How do we know it won't just keep screwing with us forever?"

"She won't."

"But how do you _know_?" Stiles reiterates.

"She told me." Derek looks at him then. "She said if we both make it out, she won't come back or bother us again."

"And you believe that?"

"What choice do we have?" Derek shrugs. It lifts Stiles's hand and they both realize they're still connected. They disentangle their fingers as casually as possible — that is to say, awkwardly and with more fumbling than even remotely necessary. Derek crosses his arms over his chest, gripping his own biceps. Stiles scratches nervously through his hair.

"We had to stick together," Stiles says a moment later. Derek looks over at him, eyebrows raised. "To make it out, we had to stay together. To listen to each other," he elaborates. "To _trust_ each other."

Derek frowns, but his eyebrows remain inquisitive.

"So maybe we should, you know, keep doing that," Stiles proposes. "I mean all of us. Wolves and… and non-wolves. I think a lot of crap could've been avoided if we'd all just agreed to be on the same side from the start."

"And I'm supposed to follow Scott now?" Derek says, archly.

" _No_ ," Stiles replies, elongating the word but trying not to roll his eyes. "I'm not saying he hasn't been part of the problem here, and I take my share of the blame, too, but maybe you both could truthfully talk to each other. You know, like real people." Stiles crosses his own arms and shrugs indifferently. "I mean, if the others saw you two getting along and actually working together… I'm just saying. It could make things easier for everyone. And by everyone, I mostly mean me."

He twitches his mouth up into a smirk and winks at Derek, who remains impassive. Then Stiles blinks at himself and groans. "Oh my god. Did we just, like, learn a valuable lesson from a woodland fairy? Is that what this was?" He flails his hands wildly to encompass the forest and the sky and the whole night.

"No. That was just the universe being an asshole," Derek says, returning his gaze to the decaying corpse of his family's home. "Not everything happens for a reason, Stiles."

Eyes darting between Derek and the rickety support beams visible through the sloping roof, Stiles scratches at his chin. "Have you ever considered…" he starts, then stops before blundering on again. "Look I, more than most, know what it's like to hold onto things, but this place is literally a death trap and I realized that bad choice of words as I was saying them—" He winces, closing his eyes. "But my point stands."

"Which point would that be?"

"Tear this place down, man," Stiles sighs. "No good comes from leaving it here to rot." He takes that one step closer to Derek, so their elbows just touch. "You shouldn't let it keep haunting you for the rest of your life," he finishes softly.

For a long while Derek says nothing. His eyes stay fixed on the house, his arms still crossed. Eventually he exhales audibly, and Stiles wonders if he'd been holding his breath this whole time.

"I don't know if I can let go," Derek says. Stiles nods and starts to say _'I know'_ , but something in Derek's pause keeps him quiet. Derek lets his hands fall to his sides. "But you're not wrong."

For about half a second Stiles considers showing the maturity that his father swears he should have grown into by now, and letting that go without comment. But that just isn't his style.

"Holy shit, what?" he says, clutching at his chest and turning to face Derek. "Now you're _trying_ to give me a heart attack, aren't you? Did you just say I was right?"

Derek tips his head to the side like he's thinking. "No. I didn't." He faces Stiles and full-on beams at him. "I would never say that."

Stiles can't help it, his face cracks and he grins down at the ground with his chin tucked to his chest, trying to hide it. A laugh bubbles out of him, and he points an accusing finger at Derek. "Funny guy. But you, in a roundabout fashion, totally admitted that I am right."

Derek rolls his eyes then. "It's not like I haven't been trying to work with Scott from the beginning." Stiles raises incredulous eyebrows at him. Derek looks away with a huff. " _Maybe_ ," he stresses, "I didn't always go about it in the best way." Stiles intensifies his look, widening his eyes. "Fine," Derek snaps. "So what are you suggesting? Should I invite everyone for a camp-out and a sing-a-long?"

"Whoa," Stiles laughs, both palms outward. "Baby steps, man, baby steps." He jerks his head to the side. "First, I suggest you help me find my Jeep for real this time. Then, let's go get something to eat because I feel like I've just been running for _days_ and I'm starving. After that, if it's not too late and I haven't passed out in a food coma, I say we go tell Scott all about our little adventure."

He puts a hand on Derek's upper arm. When it isn't shrugged off, when Derek doesn't even _look_ at it, Stiles knows that everything is going to work out this time. He starts walking in the direction he thinks his Jeep will be found, until he feels a hand on his arm. Derek tugs him about forty-five degrees to the right.

"It's this way," he says. His fingers slide down to take Stiles's hand. "I can smell the greasy food wrappers you've left putrefying in the back seat."

Stiles laughs long and loud, doubling his pace to keep up with Derek.

Above them, he spots the quarter moon as it should be in a glittering sea of navy sky. He picks out the brightest star easily, twinkling straight overhead. Its light expands, shimmering into a globe, then shoots across the sky in a blue-green streak before disappearing altogether.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This was my very first Big Bang ever! Well, mini-bang, technically. It was lots of fun, so much in fact that I signed up for another — which you'll see the results of this summer (I hope).
> 
> I had this idea immediately after mainlining seasons 1 & 2, but then got distracted and didn't finish it before s3 began. It languished for such a long time, and I'm really glad for the Sterek Big Bang that pushed me to drag this back out and finally get it done. It's a bit of a departure from my usual style — less dialogue-heavy, more action (I think? It felt like a lot while I was writing it.) and more imagery than I tend to describe.
> 
> I was originally going to write parts from Derek's POV when they get separated, but I just couldn't bring myself to write out all the ways he is tortured. Just know that his half of this experience was no picnic.
> 
> References in order:  
> 1\. The line 'He's in the prime of his youth, and he'll only be young once!' is taken and adapted from the film **Stand By Me** (also, possibly Stephen King's novella _The Body_ but it's been a while since I've read it and can't remember if that was only part of the movie adaptation). Anyway, in my personal canon, Stiles loves that movie (thus where the idea that going to look for a dead body would be fun came from).  
>  2\. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (named, Robin Goodfellow, or [Puck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puck_%28mythology%29) is described here as "a kind of half-tamed woodland spirit, leading folk astray with echoes and lights in nighttime woodlands" which is how I decided on my title.)  
>  3\. **Evil Dead** (named, [Sam Raimi regrets that scene](http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/big-screen/2012/oct/17/sam-raimi-and-the-raping-tree/#), as do we all.)  
>  4\. Jack and the Beanstalk (named)  
> 5\. "At least you're out of the tree." is a line from **Jurassic Park** , hence the T.rex crack Stiles makes. (Apparently I can't write a fic without making a Jurassic Park reference.)  
> 6\. The movie Stiles talks about where the boy explains color to a blind girl is called **Mask** \- it's a really good movie, I highly recommend it.  
>  7\. WORLD 1-2 is the subterranean level of Super Mario Bros.  
> 8\. The hedge maze and "Here's Johnny" are from **The Shining** (film, not book) obviously.
> 
> Basically all of M83's discography was the soundtrack to writing this, but a few songs in particular make up the soundtrack:  
> 01\. Moonchild (title track)  
> 02\. Strong and Wasted (lost in your own backyard)  
> 03\. Echoes of Mine (sentient tree/what I imagined playing over the movie trailer of Stiles being hauled up into the tree and Derek chasing after him)  
> 04\. I Guess I'm Floating (Stiles sinking under the water)  
> 05\. This Bright Flash (Derek rescuing him and being dragged down the river)  
> 06\. Waves, Waves, Waves (at the side of the river/stream to catch their breath)  
> 07\. Violet Tree (walking through eerie woods, turns to walls)  
> 08\. Gone (Stiles's mother)  
> 09\. You Appearing (Derek's house/family)  
> 10\. Fields, Shorelines and Hunters (fire starts, burns down around them)  
> 11\. * (Stiles running from Peter in the maze)  
> 12\. Don't Save Us From the Flames (Derek carrying Stiles through the house)  
> 13\. Farewell/Goodbye (watching Derek's house burn, walking away)  
> 14\. Fountains (holding hands)  
> 15\. In The Cold I'm Standing (talking in the woods, eerie atmosphere, apparitions appearing to them)  
> 16\. Unrecorded (escaping from the apparitions, deciding to follow Scott)  
> 17\. Another Wave From You (following Scott)  
> 18\. Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun (reach the real Hale house clearing)  
> 19\. We Own The Sky (end credits, if this were a movie)
> 
> Thanks for reading and I really hoped you enjoyed the story!


End file.
